


Legend of the Golden Witch

by YaminoTenshi202



Series: Borderline [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Danny is not Maddie and Jack's son, M/M, THIS STORY IS NOW BEING REWRITTEN, alternative universe, in which Danny and Phantom are separate beings in one body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:23:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YaminoTenshi202/pseuds/YaminoTenshi202
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ghost hunter Maddie Fenton buckled her four-year-old daughter in her booster seat, handing her her Bearbert Einstein. Her daughter looked up at her with eagerness twinkling in her eyes. "I'm going to have a baby brother, Mommy?"</p><p>Maddie nodded.</p><p>((Alternate Universe - A Pitch Pearl Series))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Legend

**Author's Note:**

> The titles of each story arc come from "Umineko no Naku Koro ni". This is also, ultimately, a Pitch Pearl story, with many other pairings dabbled throughout. This story has ideas that I’ve had for a while (though some were actually the same as ones from the story, but I was not aware that they were the same until recently).
> 
> *For this first arc, many things are implied. I've explained the important events, but I'm trying to get away from exhibition. It just hurts me.

 

* * *

Year: 2000

Ghost hunter Maddie Fenton buckled her four-year-old daughter in her booster seat, handing her her Bearbert Einstein. Her daughter looked up at her with eagerness twinkling in her eyes. "I'm going to have a baby brother, Mommy?"

Maddie nodded. She heard a door close and turned to see her husband of six years, Jack Fenton, closing the door to their home. Fentonworks was still in the production stage, the Op-Center on the roof not quite done yet, but it still gave Maddie a warm feeling of pride. They had come a long way since college...

"Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie?" Maddie answered to her daughter, adjusting the girl's backpack - full of colouring books and workbooks that the preschool teacher had given them - on the floor.

"Why Wisconsin? My baby brother should be here." After the family had been approved from their home study, they had waited with a nervous happiness. They would be able to adopt a child. So many profiles had been read, many children older than Jazz, which is not what they were looking for exactly.

Then the letter from… Whoever the sender was, they never left a name.

**_Maddie... my dear Maddie._ **

**_This little boy that I have, I can't take care of him anymore. Please... Please take care of him._ **

**_\- D._ **

The envelope that contained the small letter also contained a birth certificate, a form that listed the boy as the godchild of Jack and Madeline Fenton, and medical forms. When contacting the agency in Madison, Wisconsin, they said that because they were listed as the boy's godparents, they could take him home after spending some time with him and filling out all of the paper work. They also had copies of the forms, which made the adoption progress much easier.

Almost too easy.

Also in the envelope, a photo of the little boy that they were to be adopting. He had white skin, almost like alabaster, and ebony black hair. His eyes, bright blue, like the sky or the ocean, haunted her most. They reminded her of things that she’d rather forget.

“He’s a really cute kid, Mads.” She looked over at her husband and then gripped her seat as he turned a bit sharply, Jazz whining a bit in the back seat as she was tilted into a slightly uncomfortable position against the door of the RV.

“Are you okay, Princess?” Jack asked, turning off of the highway and onto the ramp, not too much further from the city of Madison. Jazz, assuring her father that she was fine, began to tell her parents about all of the things that she would do with her new baby brother, like watching movies and playing with her dolls. Tea parties would be fun, Maddie making them cookies that they could have with iced tea or milk.

“We still don’t know if your brother will like all of those things, Jazz.”

“I know, but we can try it. He might like things that he can show me and I’ll like them, too.” Maddie smiled. Her daughter was always so considerate towards others, and she was always trying new things when it would make others happy. Such a good girl.

She’d be a wonderful sister.

* * *

Walking into the Adoption Agency, Jazz pouted as the woman at the desk tried to talk to her like a little baby. She was four years old, but that didn’t mean that she would content herself with a stupid lollipop and a colouring sheet.

“Can I meet my baby brother yet?” She felt her mother pat her head.

“Your parents have to meet him on their own first; okay, Jasmine?” The secretary took the redhead’s hand and led her to the lobby, inviting her to try reading some magazines if she didn’t want to colour.

The social worker leading the child’s case led Maddie and Jack down a hallway to meet their god-son… their adopted son.

She opened a door, the third on the left, and greeted the child. Well, the Fentons could only assume that they were greeting him; it was another language, Asian-sounding.

The little boy looked up at the woman that greeted him and spoke in like tongue. He was looking up at her with a warm look in his eyes, bright blue like the sky.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, this is Danny Martin.” She turned to look down at the little boy and another woman that stood by him who spoke soft, Asian words to the child, most likely introducing them to him.

Danny stood up and then Maddie took note of what he was wearing. He was wearing a little blue dress, a dark navy blue faux velvet with a silver design on it, the shimmering thread in the form of a butterfly on the bodice of the outfit. Why on Earth he wore that outfit, Maddie had no clue, but the child did not seem to mind at all. In fact, Danny grabbed the skirt of his dress and shook it a little, perhaps to shake away any dust or fuzz that could have caught onto the fabric.

He walked up to the both of them and bowed. He said something that could only be interpreted as some kind of greeting.

Jack bent down, so that he was on his knees, and bowed to Danny. “Hi, Danny. I’m Jack.”

Danny straightened himself to look at the tall man. “Jack? Hello, Jack. I’m Danny.”

Maddie let out a sigh that she hadn’t been conscious of holding. She was so worried that now she wouldn’t be able to talk to her son… Strange… The thought was so natural, it was nice.

“You speak English, Danny?” He nodded to her question. “What else do you speak?”

Danny spoke softly. He turned to the translator, not certain of the words in English.

“His mother taught him Japanese and Russian.” Maddie patted the black-haired child on the head while the social servant continued. “What he first said to you was a request for you two to take care of him.”

Danny smiled and giggled as Jack picked him up, holding him close. He hugged the man, happy that somebody was finally hugging him. No one really hugged him here.

“Of course, we’ll take care of him.” Maddie reached for Danny and the boy was placed into her arms by her husband. “We’ll take care of you, sweetie… Danny.”

Danny smiled. “Thank you, Maddie.”

She shivered a bit, as a memory pushed against her consciousness.

**_“Thank you, Maddie…”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The narrator is underlined and in the nice blocked image. The narrator... Heed the words of the narrator.


	2. Trust v. Mistrust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny starts to adjust living in the Fenton Household.

Danny slept most of the car ride back to Amity Park, sucking on his thumb. He had a strange stuffed animal, one that his mother had made for him, in his grasp. He insisted it was a fox, though Jazz argued that a fox didn’t have so many tails. Danny frowned at her, not understanding how she didn’t see that it was a fox. Jazz frowned and looked at Maddie with a judging glance, wondering if a baby brother would really be so wonderful.

The fox itself was rather strange. It was black and a golden thread outlined its eyes and other facial features. A Japanese character was on a small metal collar around its neck. Danny called the character “Shi”. Asking the translator what it meant sent small chills through Maddie.

_“The character ‘shi,’ depending on how it is written,” she said, taking out a piece of paper to write down the characters that were pronounced the same way. Maddie stopped her when she saw it._

死

_“That means ‘death’.”_

Why would a mother give her child such a thing? Such a frightening concept to teach a being that is just beginning to live.

Danny held it dear and close as he slept.

* * *

Jack helped Danny put his things in the room that they set up for him. There was a nice window that they could use if he wanted to look up at the stars, something the boy said that he liked to do.

“Danny _hoshi hoshii!_ ” Danny reached up to try and grab the stars that Jack had put up on the walls, the glow-in-the-dark shapes currently dull but still a nice shade of green.

“Hoshi?” Danny toddled to his new father and nodded. He pointed to the star and repeated the word.

“So it’s a star?” Jack put the small dress that the boy had worn the previous day, the nice blue one of faux velvet, into a dresser drawer.

“Star.” The little boy grabbed the last of his shirts – not that he had that many – and attempted to fold it like Jack had. When he was done, though it was sloppy, he held it out to Jack. “Done!”

The large man grabbed it and put it in the drawer, closing it and grabbing the little boy into a warm hug.

“All done, son.” Danny was still for a few moments in his arms, blinking, before hugging Jack back.

“… Daddy…”

* * *

Jazz smiled as her mother poured some syrup onto her pancakes, her Flapjack Fentons. Even if her dad was somewhat strange compared to other fathers that she had met on Parent Day at her pre-school, she loved him all the same, from his jumpsuit to the food that he loved to make.

Danny stared at her food, as though he had never seen it before. When Maddie gave him his pancakes, all cut into bite-size pieces for him, he thanked her but continued to sit. Jazz hummed softly and began to eat, watching her parents continue to make some more pancakes and talk about their work that went on downstairs in their lab.

Jazz kept looking at Danny, wondering why he wouldn’t eat. He kept hugging his weird fox and looking at their parents. Only when Maddie and Jack were finally sitting down to eat, Jazz long done and reading her new book, did Danny mutter something and begin to eat, losing himself at the sweetness of syrup that he had never tasted before.

“Yum!”

Jack laughed. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

Maddie smiled. “Is there food you like, Danny? I can make it.”

The child held a pensive expression. “ _Piroshki_ … and tiramisu.” He continued to eat the pancakes and quieted himself for now.

Jazz asked Maddie why he wouldn’t eat earlier and she told her daughter that they would ask him later.

They never did. Danny did eat in time with Maddie and Jack, and Jazz would do that same until she got tired of it.

* * *

Danny held his fox close as he tried to sleep in the new bed that Maddie and Jack put him into. It was strange sleeping above the ground. No matter how many times he had done it – at his cousins’ houses – Danny thought it was weird to sleep on a bed, so soft and cushiony. He turned and could not get comfortable.

_“Little Prince, darling dear, sleep; it seems…_

_“That the witches are changing all the bad dreams…_

_“Into the butterflies, that flutter by, into silver…_

_“But they are not something that I’d ever pilfer…_

_“Because I have you in my arms, your eyes like the stars…_

_“And love, are the all the treasure I need…”_

He wanted his mother back. Why did she go to the doctor? Why didn’t he fix her?

Why did Papa leave him with his aunt? Why did he let the officials take him away?

Maddie and Jack were nice. They didn’t understand him, but surely in time they would…

Surely…


	3. Autonomy v. Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny is put into a role and sent to school

Danny slipped into one of his dresses, a red one in the style of a traditional Chinese dress, and pouted as he snapped the buttons on the front closed, as they were very hard to press into place and hurt his fingers at times.

He slipped on his shoes – it was still so strange that they wore shoes inside the house – and hummed softly, playing with his fox and the porcelain doll that his Papa had gotten for him when they went to Chicago…

It seemed like such a long time ago now. Maybe Maddie and Jack could take him to Chicago, if they ever had the time. They could see the really tall Sears Tower, and they could all go to the little Chinatown that was in the area…

He brushed the doll’s hair and sang softly to himself, a silly song about an elephant on a spider’s web. A knock on his door alerted him to Maddie entering the room.

“Good morning, sweetie.” She made a strange smile, one that Danny couldn’t imitate. “Another dress?”

“Dress bad?” Danny frowned for two reasons; for some reason that he could not discern, his new mother did not like him wearing the dresses that he very much liked, and the fact that he could not speak all of the thoughts that went on in his head with the lucidity that Maddie, Jack, and even Jazz had.

“No, sweetie. It’s not bad. Wouldn’t you like some pants on, though?” Danny tilted his head and reluctantly nodded, seeing that Maddie was reaching for a pair of trousers instead.

The little boy pursed his lips as his mother helped him into a tee-shirt and jeans. He looked nice in them, though he really wanted to wear his dress. She didn’t really like him in what she called girl clothes, Maddie didn’t. Was it because he was a boy? Should it matter?

“Are you ready to go to school, Danny?” Maddie smiled when Danny smiled, happy that her little boy was excited for his first day at pre-school.

* * *

Jazz liked her pre-school, but she was annoyed that Danny would be coming with her. Even if they would be in different rooms, it was her school first.

“Does Danny have to go, Mom?” Maddie sighed as she came to a red light and slowed to a stop, her foot firmly on the brake pedal.

“Danny needs to meet other kids, Jazz, just like you do. He’ll learn things at school, just like you.”

Just like Jazz.

Danny played with his fox, content and watching the buildings outside go by. What did that mean, “just like Jazz”? It didn’t seem too important, since they weren’t speaking to him directly.

When Danny was carried in to the building, he was calmed into a sense of serenity, the pastel yellow walls warm and welcoming. His teacher began to walk him to his “classroom” and Danny turned to Maddie and Jazz.

“Jazz?” He called out to her. His teacher smiled down at him.

“Your sister is going to her own room, Danny.” The woman bent down to his level. “You’re going to spend time with some other kids your age, okay?”

He looked back at Jazz, seeing that Maddie was leaving, her blue-suited body going out the door.

“Uuu…” He followed his teacher, wondering how the other kids would be. He remembered someone… Someone that was very nice to him, but he could remember their face. Green eyes…

The door to Room 2-A was opened and he saw many kids settling down to play with blocks and Danny saw that there weren’t any books laying around like at home or where he lived with Mama and Papa before…

He followed the teacher to where the cubbies were and turned away for a moment as she wrote his name on a sticky label. He saw a yellow-haired boy picking on a red-haired boy with glasses. Another kid, a tan girl in a pink dress that Danny thought looked really weird, even for a girl’s dress, was dipping a yellow-haired girl’s plaited pigtails into some paint.

“Paulina!” The girl ran to another teacher, who went to talk to Paulina, who claimed not to know what happened. Danny saw mischief in Paulina’s eyes and secretly admired that cunning. She was smart, if superficial.

If only Danny had the words.

“… Okay?” Danny turned back to his teacher. She’d been talking?

The teacher sighed at his clueless expression. “Good grief… This is yours, okay?” A blue cubby had Danny’s name on it, in all capital letters.

“Yes.”

* * *

Danny played alone with his fox most of the morning. Nap time went by smoothly, his dreams filling with thoughts of butterflies and foxes. The afternoon…

“Mrs. Fenton, could you pick Danny up from school?”

“What happened?”

“He got into a fight with another one of the kids. Something over the doll he carries around.”

“… All right. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

* * *

Danny didn’t like Dash Baxter after that. His fox had lost its collar, though Danny managed to find its tag. “Shi” would be fine.

“Aah…” he whispered to himself. His special magic words, the ones that Mama taught him, would make everything better. Yes it would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sounds that Danny makes are a tool of communication that I use even as an adult. It's a helpful thing for me.


	4. Initiative v. Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny's fear of divorce takes root, we meet Maddie's family, and a Very Bad Man comes along.

Danny and Jazz were on the couch, Danny hugging Jazz close as she read another one of her books. Christmas was coming and for some reason, Jack and Maddie were fighting. Who was Santa Claus, Danny wondered.

“Jazz, who Santa?” The girl didn’t bother to look at Danny, the four-year-old not at all happy that her brother was getting better at English nor that her brother depended on her so. He was getting annoying, even if she really did care a lot about him. Poor Danny. His mother died, and his father couldn’t take care of him for some reason.

“Dad says that he’s a fat guy that comes down the chimney with presents.”

Danny tilted his head. “Saint Nicholas?”

“They’re the same, dummy.” The boy frowned at her, so she continued to speak. “Well, that’s what I’ve read. Maybe he’s different, but I don’t think so. I’m usually not wrong. Mom doesn’t believe in him and Dad does…

“It doesn’t sound like they’re talking about that, though.”

Danny pouted. Why would someone fight over that? “He real. Mama say-”

“Forget it, Jack!” A crash was heard from the kitchen and Danny cried out a bit before hiding against Jazz’s shirt. She pushed him a bit, so that he was on her lap and not clinging onto her shirt. She didn’t want it messed up from how she had it.

Danny didn’t like the yelling. It always scared him, the loud noises. It was like when the scary man would visit his mama. They would yell about things that Danny didn’t understand and Papa would get mad and take Danny to his aunt’s house.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked. He sounded concerned.

“I’m tired of this, Jack. Five years. Five years!” Maddie came into the living room, her long auburn hair back in its usual ponytail. She grabbed one of the presents under the Christmas tree, and she turned back to the kitchen.

“Why yell?”

“… I don’t know.”

Danny looked up at his sister, a bit saddened by her voice. It seemed

* * *

Seven months later, Danny felt the same tension from Christmas finally flare up. It had been stewing like Mommy’s soup and it just decided to spill.

Danny blinked up at his mother. “Daddy’s leaving?”

Maddie sighed. “Yes.”

“Why?” His mother sat down next to him and held him close. He must be so confused.

“Daddy and I have been fighting a lot lately and sometimes mommies and daddies need time away from each other to figure how to stop fighting.” She kissed the top of his head. Blue eyes looked back at her with confusion, exasperation, and anxiety.

“Ooh…” he warbled softly, sounding like a little dove, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. Maddie swallowed.

Danny looked just like… She shook the thought away from her attention.

“I know that you’re sad right now, sweetie, but it needs to happen, okay? It’s okay…”

“Oh, oh…” he continued to say. “You stop fighting after?”

“Yes. We’ll stop fighting after.”

* * *

Jazz glared at her younger brother as her father and mother continued to take things to the Fenton RV. She and Dad would leave Amity Park to go to Richmond, stay there with Uncle John, and come visit Mom and Danny for Christmas.

Why did she have to get a baby brother? He was weird, always talking about witches and ghosts. Ghosts weren’t real and witches were just crazy people. Mommy always looked sad whenever he talked about things like that and she just didn’t have the happy, nurturing attitude that she usually had.

It’s not like it would have mattered if another family had gotten Danny. He just took away everyone’s attention from the important things, like everything that was going on at their house. Maddie’s mom and dad, Grandma Sandra and Grandpa Christian, fawned over Danny for some reason, ignoring Mom and Dad’s obsession with ghosts and acting like everything was okay, like her parents weren’t crazy.

Why didn’t people pay as much attention to her?

… She would work hard, just so she could be better than Danny. People would pay attention to her.

She’d be happy then.

* * *

Jack sat on his and his wife’s bed… soon to just be hers. How could he have not noticed anything? He was so busy obsessing over their new project, the Fenton Ghost Portal, that he’d been neglecting her. When was the last time that he held her close without his hands touching hers, no gloves between them to be barriers between their natural warmth?

Kisses were often passed between them, sweet, chaste kisses that Jazz ignored with child-like embarrassment in her eyes and that Danny always seemed to be intrigued by for some reason. Perhaps his parents had never kissed in front of him before or he was reminded of his parents from seeing it.

Whatever the case was, it didn’t satisfy Maddie. No wonder she-

She could’ve…

He pleased her. Jack could not please her as well as He was doing. He was making Maddie so happy, so _alive_ , but she didn’t want that to affect the relationship and family that she already had. Just because her family didn’t want Jack, Jazz, or Danny to come to the reunions, that didn’t mean that Jack had to distance himself from her for work.

They’d work out their problems at a distance.

* * *

Maddie sighed. Her sister Alicia and her husband, a small man who didn’t have a stable job, were arguing again. She leant against her arm, her fist softer against her cheek than the harsh words that were going back and forth between the two.

“Why do I need to work like this, Alicia? Everything that your father has-”

“Men need to work. I work! Why don’t you question your wife working when-”

Footsteps alerted the three to quiet themselves. It could be the Master of the House.

The door opened to reveal two persons and Maddie shivered in anger as blue eyes, similar to the sky and as deep as the sea, stared into her own purple eyes.

“Hello, there, dear sister Madeline.”

* * *

Danny frowned and suckled on his thumb, kicking his feet as he sat on the couch in the living room. Even if he was three years old and Mommy told him that it was a bad habit, he found comfort in doing so.

_“Uuu~ Can I go with you to the family meeting, Mommy?”_

Danny was four years old.

_“No, sweetie. Just stay here at home, okay? I’ll be back soon. Don’t go outside and be sure to be in bed when the big hand is on the twelve and the little one is on the seven.”_

_“Mii~ Danny will do what Mommy says. When will you be back?”_

_“Two days, sweetie.” Danny smiled at the kiss on his forehead. “Your babysitter will be here in a few minutes. Be good.”_

_“Danny will be good.”_

He heard the door open behind him, a man’s voice coming into the house. The man came often and he was kind. He came a lot ever since Daddy and Jazz went away.

“I’ll take good care of him, Mads.”

“I know you will.”

Danny was given another hug and his mother’s sweet scent left the house, Fentonworks now empty of her presence. His babysitter came to face him and bent down to his level, their eyes matching a plane.

“Hey, there, Danny.”

“Hi, uncle.”


	5. Industry v. Inferiority

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny loses a bit of his life from before. Maddie and Danny both try to stay strong during trying times.

Danny held the phone tightly in his hand. His mother was talking in a worried tone.

“ _I’m so sorry, Danny. Mommy’s going to be delayed for a bit, okay_?” His uncle – well, the man that Mommy had taking care of him and her while Daddy was away – was leaning close so that he could hear her speak.

“Could you ask her why, Danny?”

“ _Oji-san_ and Danny know why Mommy will be de-layed?” His four-year-old mouth stumbled over words, his Japanese language only encouraged by that fact, the fact that he could not speak correctly.

“ _Mommy’s busy with Grandpa and Aunt Alicia so I have to stay longer._ ” Danny frowned.

“Okay, Mom. I’ll be good for Oji-san, yes?”

“ _Yes, Danny. Thank you… Mommy loves you._ ”

“I love you, Mommy. Here’s Oji-san.” He handed the phone back to his uncle and smiled when the man ruffled his hair.

* * *

Maddie ran towards her sister, her lungs burning as the air that was in them did not give her enough oxygen in the slightest. It was as though she was drowning.

“Alicia! What do you mean your divorce is finalized?” She shook, her ponytail horribly done as she had only woken up about twenty minutes ago, made herself only minimally acceptable in appearance. Her robe was thrown over her pyjamas and the rest of the time had been talking to Father, who had called her through the phone at her bedside and then requested her presence post-haste.

“… I’m moving back to Arkansas, Maddie. I’m going to live with Grandma and Grandpa until I get all of my funds together and organised.”

“You’re giving up all of your money? The money you could have used to make your ba-“

Alicia turned and glared at her younger sister. “Not everyone has had an easy life like you, Maddie. I love you, you know I do, but I can’t deal with this family. My stupid **ex** -husband would have gained everything had we not divorced… He’s not that nice man that you married, Maddie. He’s such a stubborn ass and so sexist that he really doesn’t get that he shouldn’t be here at the family meeting.”

Only those with direct blood relation to the Family Head – with the exception of their brother, whose wife attended in place of her husband when the Family Head did not need to speak to his son – could attend the meetings.

Not even Jack or Jazz could come, unless it was the express wish of Maddie’s father. They had only come after the wedding and after Jazz had been born. Maddie had never brought Danny as he had no relation to the family head…

As Maddie stayed silent and truly thought about how her family operated, Alicia sighed.

“I can’t live like this anymore, Mads…” She hugged her sister and then gripped the doorknob, turning it and opening the door.

“Call us when you need our assistance, my Gaap.” Both women turned towards the centre hallway door and saw their father and brother there. Mr Martin waved to his eldest daughter. His son Darian waved as well.

Alicia nodded. “Thanks, Dad.”

The Family Head sighed and turned to his son. “Your sisters… always so outspoken and righteous as any other proud man in our family.”

* * *

Danny was alone once the next family conference came around. Daddy and Jazz still was not home and Mom had given him money so that he could buy little meals at the store for dinnertime.

He held his fox doll close as he walked to the store for his last meal. Shi was so dear to him, the last thing that his Mama had given to him before she had gone to the hospital and had never come back home to the tatami mat that Danny and Papa had shared with her after the boy had gotten too big for his bassinet.

The bell on the door rang and Danny was greeted by the store owner. He smiled and went with Shi to pick out his meal – some beef teriyaki and shrimp rice. He spoke to Shi in a soft voice and waited until he was at the register to speak more loudly.

“Hi, Danny; is your mom coming home soon?”

“She should be home tomorrow. Mommy works outside of town a lot, but a lot of her work should be down tonight.” Danny pulled out his money and paid for his meal.

“That’s good. You really shouldn’t be going out without your mother.”

Danny pouted softly. “Oh… I’m not alone, though.

“I’m not lonely.”

Danny had taken care of himself. He’d brushed his teeth, taken his baths, cleaned any of his messes, and gone to school… He was doing well on his own, but he really…

“Not at all.”

Wasn’t lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maddie has an older brother, only months older than Alicia by the name of Darian. He'll return shortly.


	6. Identity v. Role Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ghost(?) appears. Danny knows too much for his age.

Danny sat in his mother’s lap, smiling as he looked through the eyepiece of the telescope and saw the meteors going across the sky. There were very few, so it was no wonder that the news had not spoken of it. The two were in Danny’s room, trying out the scope that he got three days ago on his birthday from Jack. Jack and Jazz had spent Danny’s birthday here at Fentonworks and the family had a fun time.

The man that Mommy liked to see more than Daddy a lot of the time was there. He gave Danny a special gift in a cherry wood box, its lid lined blue velvet and its inside polished and varnished to give it a very homey feeling. That’s for later though. Constellations are now and they are indeed constant, but let us not wait anymore.

“Mommy, did you know that the constellations have stories behind them?” Maddie smiled down at him. He was such a good child and he’d start kindergarten soon. In only two days.

“Really? Tell me your favourite and what the story is behind it.”

He looked across the sky for it and then used the telescope that he loved dearly. “There! That’s Hercules.”

The assorted dots to anyone else or specifically anyone that didn’t care to learn of star patterns and constellation. It was Danny’s special sign.

“Zeus didn’t like staying all the time with his wife so he went to a mortal woman, Alcmene, and had a baby, Hercules. Even if his wife was so angry at him, Zeus put the name ‘Hera’ in his son’s name and ‘Kleos,’ so I guess that his son was beautiful and strong and absolutely glorious. Anyway, Hercules accomplished so many feats that he was loved by many people and he married the woman Deianira. Well, someone told Deianira that a woman wanted to steal her husband away, so she sent him a special shirt. She didn’t know that the shirt was covered in a poisonous blood and it began to kill him. His friend Philoctetes set his body on fire and Hercules went to live on Mount Olympus with the other gods.”

Maddie unconsciously held her child more tightly to her body. How did he know about these stories? She asked him this and her blood chilled.

“A witch taught me. Her name was Beatrice.”

Why must the Dead haunt the Living?

“When did you meet her?”

“Um… The last time she talked to me was when we were having dinner. She helped me keep my clothes out of the gravy we had.” Danny looked jubilant as he spoke of this illusion, obviously made by a child who was left alone for far too long. He was reading too many things that he shouldn’t know about. At five years old! She could keep doing this to him and let him suffer, or should she state that the next family meeting that they went to-

The telephone in the living room began to ring, its shrill tone interrupting the young mother thought processes.

“Danny, I’m going to answer the phone.”

“Yes, Mommy.” He smiled, ignorant of his mother’s feelings or gently ignoring those tense feelings, and climbed out of his mother’s lap, letting her go to answer the phone.

As she made her way down the stairs, she hummed softly to herself.

“’Beatrice,’ huh?” The “witch” had been a story in her family, one that had existed before she was born. A witch that wanted to kill and loved morbid things, that ate the souls of children who wandered into the forest that surrounded her home in Arkansas – sometimes she wondered who started it all; other times, she just remembered the song that her mother would sing.

**_Darling little Princess, so pretty and chaste_ **

**_Don’t wander to the forest in haste_ **

**_For the golden Witch Beatrice is there_ **

**_With her tearful eyes and squid ink hair_ **

**_For your blood she wants just a taste_ **

She lifted the phone and spoke a greeting into it. It was overshadowed by her father’s voice.

“ _Might I meet your son, Madeline, my darling Lucia_?”

Of course, that silly Witch name that Father had learned when he was studying to be a priest, studying all of the therologies. He had then turned to helping the Japanese that had lost their homes and dignity after being in the internment camps.

“Of course, but why would you want to meet Danny? He’s been with us for three years already.”

“… _That child. I’ve called your house and have spoken to him a few times. I told him a story about Beatrice earlier today. He said that he already knew about her and began to tell me stories about her. He’s a very interesting and bright child, Maddie. Perhaps it would be nice to meet him now when we have an interest in common_.”

“No.”

“’ _No_ ’?”

“All of your witch stories, the murders and-“

“ _What murders_?”

“… My sister, not Alicia. She told me about Beatrice.”

“ _… I never told her about Beatrice_.”

Maddie shivered. This ghost would never leave her alone.

… A ghost.

Of course! She had been so focused that she lost sight.

“Dad… You can meet my entire family, not just Danny. Don’t forget that there are more people than just you and the people that you select to exist at some point during the year.”

“ _Of course. When_?”

“Uhh…”

“ _How about on Halloween? It’s a Friday. You can all come and then spend the weekend_.”

“Are you suggesting a plane ride? How could-“

“ _I’ll pay for it, my Lucia… Do you know why I named you that? Why that is your middle name_?”

She sighed. “Why?”

“ _Lucia, the Saint of sight, the one who can see everything_.” He laughed. “ _Even my plans_.”

She chuckled softly. “All right. Just… keep that magic to yourself. I believe in ghosts, not witches.”

“ _Are they really so different_?”

“Witches don’t exist.”

Upstairs, or rather at the top of the stairs, Danny bit his lip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beatrice - Saint of Love  
> Lucia - Saint of Sight


	7. Intimacy v. Isolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny makes a friend, one that will impact his life forever.

School was just starting today. Danny held his Shi closely.

“Don’t worry, Shi,” he whispered to the plush fox. Its eyes stared at him with a curious expression, as though asking “Really? Are you sure I shouldn’t worry?” He petted its head and sighed. He was waiting for Maddie to come downstairs so that they could drive to school.

Maddie came down the stairs. “Ugh, Danny. Why don’t you leave Shi home when you go to school?”

Danny frowned openly now. Never had he done that so openly before. He was usually a happy, or at least content, boy, but being told not to take his precious fox that had nine tails… That was an offense.

“Why?”

“Because other kids might want to take it away from you, it’d be better to leave it here rather than having it be hurt when playing at school, right?” She had thought of the explanation beforehand, wanting her child to be a bit more like his sister.

Jasmine, she could handle, but after raising Danny for two years alone, Maddie realised that she could not run away any longer.

Would Danny be like who she had been running away from?

“… Okay, Mommy…” He brought Shi to her and with an invisible relaxing of her shoulder, Maddie placed Shi on the bookshelf.

“He’ll be waiting for you when you get home.”

Danny realised that Mommy was indeed lying…

Shi was going to throw a party for him, not wait.

Silly Mommy, Danny thought, turning to wave to Shi, as Maddie went to go start the car.

* * *

Danny wrote his name on the board, just like their teacher was teaching them all to do. Paulina had flaunted of her pretty script and made it no secret to mess up Star’s writing.

Danny finished his “Y” and then decided to write something underneath his name. They would look like squiggles to everyone, even the teacher.

It was his name in kanji, special kanji that he chose for himself.

 

He erased it when the teacher told him to go back to his seat. She didn’t notice at all.

* * *

During recess, Danny sat reading a book, one that his grandfather had sent to him. Mommy didn’t look through it well enough to see the circles at the end of the book. They were said to be written with blood in order for them to work correctly. Where could he get blood and why would he want it anyway?

“Hi.” Danny looked up and saw a boy with the palest hair, yet it looked quite nice on him, and green eyes that were as bright as the leaves on the trees and blades of grass.

“ _Konichi wa_.” The boy tilted his head as Danny continued to read his book.

“ _Nihonjin ka_?”

Danny looked up and nodded. This boy knew Japanese? Danny knew that he was Japanese to a degree. It said so on the papers that Mommy didn’t like him looking at. They had the word “Adoption” on them and he knew they were the papers that Maddie and Jack had to fill out in order to be his parents.

“Can I read your magic circles with you?”

“You know about the magic circles?” Danny asked with a smile, answering the other boy’s question with one of his own. “Mommy never lets me talk to her about them. How do you know about them?”

The boy sat down next to him and spoke about the things that his father and grandfather passed down for generations. Magic circles, witches, ghosts and demons.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Danny, Danny Fenton.”

“Really? I’m-”


	8. Generativity v. Stagnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More magic with Danny, a warning, and a reunion.

Danny learned much more about magic and witches. He took lessons from one – a kind witch named Lazuli Mari, who was a wonderful friend to him – and made sure to complete his circles with an elegant flair; as best as he could anyway, with his felt tip pen.

Maddie went more often to the meetings, so she told her son.

His uncle didn’t come around that often. He kept talking about how he’d give Danny a surprise on his eighth birthday though.

When would Mommy come home?

* * *

Jack groaned in his sleep. His phone was ringing at 3:00 AM and it was not a wonder that he was cranky now.

“What?”

“ _Jack… It’s Maddie._ ”

He sat up straighter. “… Hey, Mads. Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

“ _… I miss you._ ”

The large man shivered. He had waited for those words to be spoken for so long. He missed his wife. She was his other half and he’d always known that, ever since they met in college. He went out of his way to meet up with her for lunch and in the science labs, to help her with chemical mixtures and to make her homemade fudge. Just so that he could see her smile.

“I miss you, too. Is that what’s wrong?”

“ _I… Danny and I, we both miss you, Jack…_ ” She sounded like she had begun to sob. “ _I’m sorry! I’m sorry!_ ”

“Sorry” doesn’t make everything better.

It sure is nice to hear, though.

“Do you want me to come back Maddie?”

“ _Jack, I don’t just want you back. I **need** you back._ ”

* * *

 Danny hugged Jazz, but his eight-year-old sister shrugged him away. He followed her, grabbing one of her bags carefully and following her to her room.

“Jazz! I saw a witch. Did you know that witches like tea and books and playing cards?”

Jazz shook her head. “Witches aren’t real…”

Danny dropped her bag in the middle of her room.

“Want me to prove you wrong?”

“I’m never wrong.”

Danny reached into his own mind, looking for his power. “Close your eyes, Jazz. Imagine a candy, a chocolate bar, appearing in my hand.”

Jazz sighed and closed her eyes. She only opened them again when she felt a king-sized candy bar in her hand.

“Wow.”

“Wanna learn how to do it?”

* * *

“I’m never wrong.”


	9. Integrity v. Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we have come to the present...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The narrator can interact with the story characters. Fun!

Danny was seven years old when he met Tucker Foley. He was still friends with the white-haired boy, but the other boy went to a different school at the age of ten, Casper Secondary, while Danny went to Amity Park Elementary. He didn’t really mind at all, but he did wish that he could see his friend more often.

Jazz believed in magic for a while, but she eventually decided that that world, the wonderful world of candies, tea, and stuffed animals that could dance around, was not for her. She was twelve years old.

At that same time, Danny got into something quite troublesome. Though the trouble had started when Danny was eight years old, it had gotten worse and finally resulted in something that frightened the family very much. Danny was transferred to Casper Secondary, as it ran from 5th to 8th grade, and he seemed much happier after that.

When he turned twelve years old, it was still nice. Five days later…

One of his friends died.

Another got in a car crash and didn’t wake up, even when Danny would read books to him.

His third friend moved away a week later. He left a message on Danny’s phone and it was the only thing that Danny would listen to for days.

Danny took a year off of school.

Before eighth grade began, Maddie registered him for Amity Middle School, where he met back up with Tucker Foley and then became really good friends with Samantha Manson. She preferred “Sam,” though. They became really good friends, almost as though they had known each other forever.

Danny was now fourteen years old.

* * *

**_Who am I?_  **A lonely ghost, only two years old, asked to the Ghost Zone itself. It had been formed, but it held no physical shape. It simply was. The only answer that had ever come to him would be from a storyteller:

**_  
_**The ghost looked around. Sensing nothing, he asked another question and began a dialogue.

**_Why am I wandering here?_**

**_Where… is my special person?_**

**_A locked room? Where is that?_ **

 

**_Is that the right question?_ **

 

**_I’ll find them._ **

 

**_My purpose?_ **

 

  


  
The voice said nothing else and the ghost found itself being pulled along by some strange, warmth energy. Towards a space in the Ghost Zone where a new portal was going to appear.

 

* * *

Danny was fourteen years old.

“Smile!”

He blinked and rubbed his eyes a bit as the flash from Sam’s Polaroid camera burned into his retinas. One hand kept its grip on the Hazmat suit that his parents had given him to wear when he helped them with more dangerous stuff in the basement laboratory.

“Okay, I showed you the Portal. Can we get out of here now?” He and Tucker both stood by the new Fenton Ghost Portal. Danny looked to the Portal. It was large, big enough to stand in and walk through, as though it was a portal that one could walk through, to the world of spirits and maybe demons. “My parents could be back here any minute.” 

“Come on, Danny. A Ghost Zone? Aren’t you curious? You got to check it out.” He sighed. The girl was pushy, but she had the resolve and determination on par with any of his teachers, the Witches.

 _“Witches… Aren’t.”_ Jazz had said that and it had hurt him so deeply.

“You know what? You’re right.” Maybe this time, Danny was thinking, this time he could be free, like the rest of the Witches. He could disobey his parents and finally Wake Up. Yes, he could. “Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that Portal?”

He slipped on the Hazmat suit and zipped it up, covering his body in the protective suit.

“Hang on.” Danny held still as Sam came forward and ripped off the picture of his father on his chest. Tucker was laughing, wondering why Jack would ever do that. Of all of the Fentons and their strong character traits, Jack’s had to be the one that involved an innocent sense of narcissism and pride.

“You can’t go walking around with that on your chest.” Danny inhaled and exhaled.

 

* * *

** **

* * *

He walked into the Portal, not noticing that the cords were all connected.

 

* * *

**_My special person…_  **thought a lonely spirit wandering through the Ghost Zone.

 

* * *

He didn’t notice the “On” button on the inside wall of the Fenton Portal until he pressed it.

He couldn’t stop screaming!

His head was pounding and he felt like he was going to vomit, his body shaking in pain. His body was freezing. It was strange, but it was so. His flesh burnt with a raging heat, yet his blood ran cold. Such direct opposition was this that it intensified the pain of the electricity that heightened every nerve in his body. It was as though he was in boiling water and ice, switching every minute… second… millisecond.

…

Is this the Magic that the Grim Reaper holds?

Such a High Executioner could hold this might, yet it was in the hands of mere mortals such as the Fentons.

Perhaps he could die-

**_Do not die!_ **

_What?_ Danny wanted to open his eyes at the voice, but the pain from the Portal's energy still kept him from doing so.

**_Please! Do not die!_ **

_… Why? Why should I live everyday as a normal child?_

**_Because you were made in this time to do so. It is your purpose._ **

_Purpose?_

**_The reason you_ are**.

_The reason I am… The reason you are with me._

**_Yes._ **

_Who are you?_

Danny looked down at his suit, green light going in front of his eyes and he could **feel** the light taint his eyes. His eyes were taking on the horrid green that symbolized both life and death. It was lovely. He looked up and saw some of his hair turning white. Looking down, his suit was inverting its colours.

**_I… do not know who I am. All I know is that you are my special person._ **

_… I’ve never had a special person._

**_Neither have I. Would you be mine?_ **

_What should I call you, One that is Mine, One that is Danny’s?_

**_... Phantom._ **

* * *

 

**__ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ARC I: LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN WITCH - END
> 
> The titles of the previous chapters originate from Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development. The last part of this arc is based on Hamlet’s “What a piece of work is man!” speech in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

**Author's Note:**

> This story spans from before the series and even after. I'm also not too fond of most of the season 3 episodes, but I do like some of the concepts so I'll keep those. I am also dismissing the canon years that are indicated in some of the episode. My own preference, as the show itself regularly dismisses these years and various dates. Personalities are based in the canon of the show, but like with all things, perception and interpretation are left to individuals and should all be respected.


End file.
